US Navy Says 134,000 Sailors Are Affected in Severe Security Breach

The US Navy is currently in the process of notifying the Sailors whose sensitive information has been accessed.

Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Services (HPES) notified the US Navy on October 27th. One of the company’s laptops, operated by an employee with a Navy contract, was reported as compromised.

However, HPES did not provide any further clarification regarding how the security breach happened in the first place.

“The Navy takes this incident extremely seriously – this is a matter of trust for our Sailors,” said Chief of Naval Personnel, Vice Admiral Robert Burke in a short statement. “We are in the early stages of investigating and are working quickly to identify and take care of those affected by this breach.”

Notifying the affected Sailors

The Navy states that it will notify the affected Sailors with multiple means such as phone calls, letters, and emails. It is also working on providing additional details about the breach and reviewing credit monitoring service options for affected Sailors.

Still, there is some good news. It appears that the accessed data is not in use, at least not yet. “At this stage of the investigation, there is no evidence to suggest misuse of the information that was compromised,” the statement reads.

So far, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise did not issue any official statement regarding the incident, leaving much to speculation. It is unknown which operating system was in use on the compromised laptop, nor how the hackers accessed it.

Once again, there will be questions pertaining to the safe storage of data by the enterprises and the consumers. That is why tech giants like Microsoft are constantly focusing on improving security on their services.

The company focused its Ignite 2016 keynote on expanding security across all of its services. It took the opportunity to announce Windows Defender Application Guard. This is a new security service that will enhance protection on Windows 10, Office 365, and Enterprise Mobility and Security.

The company also announced Project Springfield in September this year. It is a tool that checks software for various vulnerabilities that hackers can potentially exploit.

Sead is a former Al Jazeera journalist who shares his passion for technology on various tech media outlets. Formerly a heavy gamer (semi-professional Warcraft 3 gosu), he now enjoys reviewing software and churning out words about the latest tech-news. He holds a college degree in Journalism and likes to annoy his neighbors by playing one of his three electric and two acoustic guitars.